Ghost Country

by Sara Paretsky

  Hector blinked at the thought of Starr in Stonds’s house. Why hadn’t he thought to look there on his quest last night? What had she made of the glacial granddaughter? And behind all the wonderings the secret gloating image: she was strong, she would fight, he would have to take her in his arms to subdue her.

  He got up to go. “Does Dr. Hanaper know we’re bringing her in, sir? Will he approve the admission for me?”

  “What the hell is going through your mind, young man? I don’t need Hanaper’s approval to bring my own granddaughter into this hospital.”

  “Your granddaughter?” Hector faltered.

  “Dr. Tammuz, Dr. Hanaper has complained to me about you, and I have had reason to talk to you myself. If you cannot pay proper attention to the welfare of the people entrusted to your care, or to the instructions of senior staff, we will have to rethink your employment at this hospital. My granddaughter Mara, Who the hell else would I undertake so serious an errand for?”

  “Starr,” Hector managed to say. “And Luisa, of course. The two missing patients you sent me out to find yesterday.”

  “This isn’t County Hospital, Tammuz. I know you’ve been assigned to the homeless clinic the Lenore Foundation is running at the church, but you need to separate what you’re doing there from what you’re doing here. You’d better be on your way.”

  Hector stumbled from the room, dizzy as he always seemed to be after talking to Stonds, as if slapped by converging waves. Through the half-formed thoughts: will they fire me … damned self-absorbed jagoff … what had Mara done to the housekeeper … lay the hope Starr would return to the wall. He walked the mile and a half to the hotel, on legs that wobbled with desire.

  Starr wasn’t there. The only person in sight was Mara Stonds, slumped on the curb in front of the scaffolding. Her picket sign lay upside down in the street. A half-eaten apple dangled from her hand, Nicolo, the kindly garage attendant, had brought her the apple after Brian Cassidy was taken to the hospital: he not come back to bother you, very sick, cannot—pantomiming inhaling—yes, cannot brease.

  Mara had trouble with the apple because of her broken tooth. Besides, she felt too apathetic to want food. Her anger had subsided. She was only very tired. She couldn’t go home now: Harriet would never forgive her. What had possessed her to accuse her sister in front of all those news people? She’d wanted to chase the revulsion from Harriet’s face, but now Harriet would be her implacable enemy for life.

  As long as Brian Cassidy was yelling insults at her she was able to stay angry, but he hadn’t been back since the television crews chased him into the garage. Mara giggled at the time, his simian arms useless against a camera, but with his disappearance, and the end of the excitement of talking to the reporters, she fell into a lethargy so bleak that she couldn’t even summon the energy to stand.

  Hector sat next to her on the curb. She looked at him listlessly when he softly said her name. She didn’t remember him from her brief glimpse at the hospital a week ago, but assumed he might be a hotel employee trying to talk her into leaving—there had been several such conversations this afternoon, including one with an old buddy from the convention office who used to drink with her.

  “I’m Dr. Tammuz, Ms. Stonds: we spoke briefly at the hospital last week. Your grandfather says you’re not feeling well.”

  “How does he know? He hasn’t seen me in over a week.”

  Her misery made him temporarily forget his longing for Starr. “He says you got upset and hurt his housekeeper. Do you want to tell me about it?”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “Are you here to put me in the locked wing on his orders, or because you want to know what went on with Mrs. Ephers?”

  “No one has said anything about the locked wing, Ms. Stonds. Your grandfather just wants me to talk to you in the hospital, where we can see whether there’s some problem we might be able to help you with.”

  “He wants to lock me up, don’t lie to me, I hate liars more than anything on this planet.”

  “He says you tried to kill his housekeeper. Is that a lie, too?”

  “She had a heart attack.” Mara was on her feet, shouting at him. “She had a heart attack because she was mad at me for finding some old papers. She’s like Grandfather’s familiar, she slips around the place guarding his secrets. Everyone on the planet but me bows down when he passes, so don’t you pretend you aren’t here on his orders. ‘Oh, we’ll just go to the hospital to talk,’ oh, sure, and then when I’m stupid enough to believe you he’ll shoot me full of some shit and pat you on the back. Well, screw you, Doctor. I’m not that big a fool.”

  She picked up her plastic bag of possessions and fled, before he could even ask her about Starr. He stayed on the curb, too tired to give chase. Not wanting to give chase, anyway. Despite her ugly outburst he felt sorry for her. Stonds was hard to work for, imagine what he’d be like to live with—Hector didn’t blame Mara for running away from home.

  He couldn’t face Dr. Stonds again tonight, his seal-like bark: What is wrong with you, young man? I send you on a simple errand, any fool could go to Underground Wacker and force my granddaughter to come into the hospital, so you must be lower than a fool. Maybe Stonds would make Hanaper fire Hector for failing to retrieve Mara. The thought failed to frighten him. At least then he’d be able to sleep as much as he wanted.

  34

  Once More unto the Breach, Dear Friends

  PATSY WANACHS REALIZED early in the evening that she would have her hands full this Wednesday. Most nights, Hagar’s House didn’t open until seven-thirty, to make sure all the youth activities had ended before any homeless women crossed the threshold. True, the women had a separate entrance, true, they were in the basement, not the main body of the church, but parents, with visions of homeless women or their pimps luring their children away to perform demonic rites, or giving them lice, insisted that their paths not cross.

  On Wednesdays, because of Bible study, the shelter opened an hour earlier. Around six women began gathering on the sidewalk outside the shelter’s entrance, jostling for places in line before all the beds were handed out.

  Tonight Jacqui and Nanette arrived first. As other women started showing up, the two began to pour out the tale of Madeleine’s death.

  Some of the women had seen Mara on the news. Was it true that the garage man had threatened Maddy’s life? Nicole demanded. All true, Nanette said. Only because she was having herself a vision there. Poor Maddy and her voices, Jacqui added.

  But was it really the Virgin’s blood? LaBelle wanted to know. Did it perform miracles?

  No, no, that was all in poor Maddy’s head, Jacqui said—if the wall performed miracles, Maddy would be alive now, she’d be well now.

  But had anyone ever actually tried asking for something, something direct, LaBelle persisted. Maybe Maddy never tested it. La-Belle thought they should go over and test the wall, no, not straightaway, she wasn’t giving up her place in line, thank you very much: she’d been walking all day. But in the morning.

  And what would she ask for? Nicole asked derisively. A house, with a hundred beds and plenty of food? Oh, and a manicurist to fix up their feet, not to mention some clothes?

  You don’t ask the Virgin for that kind of stuff, LaBelle said. She heals wounded souls, She doesn’t mess around with houses and clothes.

  Oh, what do you know about that? Caroline snorted. You was never a virgin, which was almost true, technically, since the first time one of her uncles raped LaBelle she was six, and by the time she was thirteen her mother was trading her daughter’s body for drugs two or three times a week.

  Before the two of them could start fighting in earnest, Patsy Wanachs came out to open the gate. LaBelle asked her if she’d seen the news, seen that girl talking about how the hotel killed Maddy.

  Patsy snorted. “Mara Stonds was born a troublemaker and she’ll probably die one. I wouldn’t believe her if she told me this church was on Orleans Street.”

  “But it is on
Orleans Street,” LaBelle said, a worried crease between her eyes.

  “That’s her point, but I don’t think little Mara is a troublemaker—she’s only troubled,” Jacqui said, maybe the only person who’d ever seen Mara as small, thinking of her as young, scared like all of them were. “Yes, she’s a troubled girl, but she was brave to stand out there today, stand up to that garage man. He’s a mean man and a big one.”

  Patsy frowned at Jacqui as she swept the women up the side path to the basement entrance. “Mara’s grandfather, who’s been looking after her since she was born, has never had anything but heartache for his pains. He’s trying to get her medical help now, but she’s running around on the streets because she’s too sick to know it’s for her own good. If you run into her you should persuade her to check herself into the hospital.”

  All the women fell silent at that. The idea of someone going out of their way to offer medical care—that sounded good on the surface, but below the surface of hot meals and hospital beds lay forcible injections and incarcerations, surrounded by the howling damned.

  Patsy Wanachs had seen Mara on the news, and had a call from Dr. Stonds besides: if Mara shows up there as she might—with her penchant for self-dramatization now picturing herself among society’s outcasts—let me know. When Mara showed up, though, Patsy didn’t recognize her. She was looking for that bush of wild hair, not a baldheaded girl with a broken front tooth.

  When she ran from Hector, Mara managed only a block and a half at a dead run before she had to stop for breath. A week’s malnutrition and sleep deprivation had weakened muscles which used to move her easily around basketball or tennis courts. Her bag banging into her side further slowed her down. She lurked under the loading dock of a building that backed onto the Pleiades for five minutes, but neither the doctor nor police seemed to be behind her, so she emerged and headed in the vague direction of Hagar’s House.

  If she got there early and got another night’s sleep, maybe in the morning she’d be able to figure out what to do. Dr. Tammuz claimed Grandfather wasn’t talking about the locked ward, but she didn’t believe him. Grandfather probably told the resident to lie to her, to lure her into the hospital, and then he’d put her in restraints. That meant she needed to disguise herself, even out on the street, let alone at Hagar’s House. She took the stocking out of her plastic bag and pulled it down over her ears, then frowned at her image in a store window. If Patsy Wanachs took it into her head to inspect the women closely, she might easily yank the stocking from Mara’s head and tell her to stop playing games. And then, swollen with righteousness, call Grandfather.

  Mara wandered on down Grand Avenue, kicking at loose pieces of pavement. Near the corner of Wells she passed a dingy barbershop. Maybe it was her throbbing tooth clouding her mind that made her think shaving her head would be a good idea. Anyway, the old black man who was alone in the shop didn’t blink at her request. True, he demanded to be paid up front. Seven-fifty. About what Harriet tipped the man who styled her hair every Thursday morning.

  When she saw herself in the mirror behind the chair Mara was shocked. She looked like a boy, and her head felt cold and unprotected, despite the muggy air.

  Patsy Wanachs, glancing cursorily at Mara’s face when she checked in, didn’t recognize her, but Cynthia Lowrie did. Cynthia was handing out Bibles for Rafe in the activities room when Mara sidled in. Cynthia dropped the Bibles, her hand over her mouth, until Rafe asked if she’d lost the few wits she’d been born with, and to get busy, Caroline and a woman named Ashley drew the metal folding chairs into a large semicircle—they got an extra clothes ration for helping out—while Cynthia went back to distributing Bibles. Cynthia tried shepherding the group into chairs, but they were still agitated about Madeleine and the hotel, and only sat down when Rafe, looking up from a low-voiced consultation with Patsy Wanachs, barked out an order to them. They were used to responding to his authority, and they did so again, although many of them muttered angrily as they broke up their conversations.

  Cynthia took a chair next to Mara. She was afraid to speak to her, in case Rafe noticed, but she kept staring at her friend’s bald head. When she’d seen Mara on the six o’clock news, her hair was as shaggy as ever.

  “We’ll start with a prayer. Cynthia, will you stop mooning about and join us in asking for Jesus’ guidance in understanding life and its problems? … Lord, open our hearts to understanding Your will, and to receiving instruction from Your Holy Word. We may not always understand the guidance You are giving us, but we know You are acting out of perfect goodness, as a father looks after his children with perfect love.”

  Here Mara stepped on Cynthia’s foot, but Cynthia refused to respond, except with a nervous glance at Rafe.

  “We know that some of our sisters are distressed about the death of one of their company. Sister Natalie was sadly afflicted in mind, and it was Your will to keep her mind clouded, but—”

  “Madeleine,” Mara said, her anger starting to rise again. “Her name was Madeleine. And it’s never God’s will for someone to be as unhappy as she was.”

  Cynthia clutched Mara’s hand: don’t make him mad, the pressure in her fingers begged, he only takes it out on me.

  “If you have a contribution to make, wait until I’m through with the prayer, young woman. I presume someone on the staff checked that you are a woman?”

  “I’m a woman, all right,” Mara said, feeling an enormous shield of anonymity protecting her from Rafe, “but did they check into your species? Are you really a member of the human race? If we stripped you, would we find a space alien? You were praying for a woman who died in a horrible way, and you got her name wrong. It’s Madeleine, not Natalie, and if it was God’s will that she was homeless and heard voices, then He’s a piss-poor god.”

  “How dare you?” Rafe was on his feet, his husky voice raw with rage. “The rules of this session are stated clearly up front: you cannot disrupt the prayer meeting. If you say one more thing without being invited to speak I will have you thrown out of the shelter.”

  Jacqui moved over next to Mara. “Don’t carry on so, girl: Maddy’s at peace now, and she wouldn’t want you giving up your bed just because Brother Rafe got her name wrong. Wherever she is, she’s proud of you for standing up for her, so let it go, okay?”

  Rafe breathed heavily for a few seconds, but when it was clear Mara had submitted to his will he sat back down and resumed his prayer. The day’s study passage came from First Kings, where the prophet Elijah raised the widow’s son from the dead, but then fled in terror from the threats of Jezebel. Rafe said, of course only Jesus could raise souls from the dead, so it was the power of Jesus working through Elijah that healed the widow’s son; Elijah’s mere mortal state was proven by his fear of Jezebel, the harlot, who made him flee Judea for a cave in the mountains.

  “So how come there are no prophets around these days like Elijah to raise you from the dead?” LaBelle asked, thinking of Madeleine, thinking of her own father who had died when she was two, leaving her with her mother and her uncles: if Jesus could bring the dead to life, how come He let her father lie there dead, knowing what lay ahead for her?

  “We will all be raised at the last day, if we have faith,” Rafe answered. “And revelation ended with the Resurrection: we don’t need new prophets—we need to follow the Word as incarnated in Jesus.”

  “We’ll get pie in the sky when we die, is that it?” Mara demanded.

  “Young woman, you may think you are being funny, but blasphemy is the sin against the Holy Spirit, the one sin that cannot be forgiven.”

  “But what if Maddy was a prophet?” LaBelle persisted. “What if she was a prophet from the Mother of God? Women never got any prophets like that, so maybe the Mother of God is speaking to us now, like Maddy thought, through that crack in the wall. You know, like women talk in real life, through cracks.”

  “Let it go, LaBelle,” Jacqui said gruffly. “Like Brother Rafe said, she’s at peace now. Let her lie i
n peace.”

  “And don’t bring talk about prophets of the Mother of God into church,” Rafe said. “That comes perilously close to witchcraft. As does talk about blood coming out of a wall. It’s been on the news the last two days—there was a rusty pipe down there, and Natalie was an unstable woman who couldn’t tell the difference between rust and blood.”

  “Her name was Madeleine. Don’t you ever listen to anything a woman tells you?” Mara snapped.

  “And did you go down there and look at that crack yourself?” LaBelle said. “You think because you have a lot of money God talks to you but not to us? That’s not what it says in Scripture, in Scripture it says it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.”

  “You think we care about what you have to say?” Nicole added. “You know as well as me we only sit through these sessions because otherwise we can’t get a bed on Wednesday nights.”

  “What does he know about Scripture that we can’t find out on our own?” Caroline put in.

  “Oh, why are we bothering with Madeleine?” the woman Ashley, who had helped set up the chairs, exclaimed. “No one wants to admit the truth—she was crazy. Let’s finish the Bible lesson so we can get to bed.”

  The room erupted into argument, as Nanette leapt from her seat to argue with Ashley. Maddy was murdered, she said, by that hotel.

  LaBelle and Caroline continued their fight about whether Maddy’s wall might contain miracles, while others thought the point of the furor was a vote on whether they even wanted Bible study. Ashley repeated that she just wanted to go on with the text so they could get to bed. Two women actually were asleep, so worn by their day’s trudging from drop-in point to drop-in point that not even the fight in the room could rouse them.

  Rafe Lowrie was furious with them. He was on his feet again, yelling at top volume, but the voice that controlled the cattle pit had no effect on the women. Most of them were on their feet as well, all the insults of life on the streets—the rapes they’d experienced, the beatings and robberies, the daily humiliations, the sore feet, the unwashed clothes—finding expression in their furor over Madeleine’s death.